Wrapping up 2024

2024 has been a rollercoaster of a year. From the EU elections to a new European Commission taking office with Ursula von der Leyen back for a second term, to a series of reports we launched to guide Europe towards a decarbonised future through electrification - EVision, Grids for Speed, Wired for Tomorrow, PowerPlant 2.0, and Power Barometer, to name a few.

Let’s have a look back together at the year.

A year of ballots - and a new Commission

2024 will be for many the year of elections: from national ones on the European continent – in Portugal, Belgium, Croatia, Austria and Romania to name a few - to the presidential elections in the United States, which were closely followed by Europeans, too.  

With our #WePowerEU campaign, we set out the 5 key priorities for the next legislative mandate from our EU Elections Manifesto, unpacked by our policy experts:

1. Implementation of the agreed Green Deal legislation - Nic Steinwand explained it here.
2. Electrification for decarbonisation – unpacked by Paul Wilczek here.
3. Security of Supply, with more insight by Charlotte Renaud here (but stay tuned as we have something special in store on this topic, which will see the light in early 2025)
4. Driving the expansion and digitalisation of electricity grids – explained by Savannah Altvater
5. Empowering a transition serving all consumers – by Alessandro Zappi here.

The elections resulted in a shift to the right in the hemicycle of the European Parliament, with more seats for the right at the Greens and Renew’s expense. We analysed in depth what this would mean for the power sector in the mandate that has started.

Following the elections, we have closely monitored the appointment of Ms von der Leyen as the Commission President for a second mandate, and the formation of a new College of Commissioners. The keyword for the 2024-2029 term will be industrial competitiveness: based on the recommendations of the Draghi report, the Commission will launch a Clean Industrial Deal guided by a Competitiveness Compass – and we will be ready to provide our views and join the conversation that will shape the EU’s decarbonised future.

A year of Grids

If there is a word that encapsulates this year’s EU’s energy policy agenda, that is grids. And with good reason: as the year comes to an end, there will be only five years left to reach the 2030 targets. By 2030 in fact, the EU aims at slashing net greenhous gas emissions by 55% compared to 1990 levels and become climate neutral by 2050. In view of there goals, our energy system is undergoing a profound transformation, going from a centralised to more decentralised system where 70% of the additional renewable energy capacity that is to come will be connected directly to the distribution grid.

This is why distribution grids have been taken the headlines of top media and entered the agenda of the European Commission, but have also been the main topic of out two biggest reports of the year, which are now providing a valuable contribution for the legislation that is to come.

With our Grids for Speed study, we highlighted the need to massively invest in distribution grids in order to achieve the targeted goals. At present, we’re investing €36 billion per year on average, but to meet the demands of tomorrow - expanding connections, increasing the number of substations and embracing digitalisation – we’ll need to ramp that figure up to €67 billion annually until 2050. However, with the right measures (anticipatory investments, grid optimisation, etc) we can bring this figure down to €55 billion annually – check out the report to discover how.

With Wired for Tomorrow, we further highlighted the importance of ramping up investments for a digitally enhanced grid. Providing a blueprint for how distribution system operators (DSOs) can leverage digital technologies to boost grid capacity, efficiency and resilience, it provided the basis for Eurelectric policy recommendations, which advocated for future-proofing the grid, ensuring interoperability and cohesiveness and fostering innovation as ways to bolster the grid digitally. We further discussed the results of the study at Enlit Europe 2024 in Milan, where we hosted two panels on digitalisation as part of our Digitopia Hub.

Both flagship reports were launched during our record-breaking Power Summit hosted by our member PPC S.A. in Lagonissi, Greece, which saw 500 participants, 40 sponsors and 10 sessions with top speakers, including Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, Eurelectric’s President Leo Birnbaum, CEO of E.ON and Vice-Presidents Georgios Stassis, Chairman and CEO of PPC Group, and Markus Rauramo, CEO of Fortum as well as DTEK’s CEO Maxim Timchenko and many more.

For the Grids for Speed study, it marked the beginning of a roadshow across Europe, from Spain to Hungary to Finland and nearly everywhere in between, to finally land in Brussels with a dedicated event at Bibliothèque Solvay, where we brought more insights on the technologies that can help DSOs optimise their operation and cut down the investment need, as well as an interactive map to break down where the grid investments will be needed in every EU Member State plus Norway. We talked about it in a previous Friday Feature.

A year in harmony with nature

While aiming to decarbonise society through electrification, the power sector is not losing sight of its environmental impact – instead, it is fully committed to address both climate change and biodiversity loss while deploying renewable, grid and storage projects at speed.

There are already examples of renewable energy projects developed in harmony with nature, but this year we took a step further by creating a guidebook for developers with 12 principles for biodiversity integration, combined with qualitative success factors and quantitative methods. They are summed up in this video:

A year of Elda

2024 was also the first year of Elda, our Electricity Data Assistant. Launched at Power Barometer 2023, Elda is our user-friendly data platform offering near real-time European power sector data that simplifies access to metrics like CO2 emissions, electricity generation, prices and much more. In July, it broke the news with data showing that in the first half of 2024, renewables made up more than 50% of all power generation in Europe while nuclear provided a stable share of 24%.

This figure was even quoted by Commission’s President Ursula von der Leyen in her speech to members of the European Parliament foe a second mandate.   

It is not a surprise then that it also got much deserved recognitions, such as a bronze medal in the category "Digital Publishing" at the 2024 Digital Communication Awards (DCA), and another bronze for the "Best Use of Data" category at the Digital Impact Awards 2024.

Looking at 2025

Our engines are already running for 2025. We will kick off with EVision, our annual e-mobility event taking place on 5-6 March at Autoworld Museum. After this year’s report on data interoperability, the 2025 edition will focus on the flexibility potential of electric vehicles (EVs) to support the power grid. Registrations are open and there is an early bird discount until 9 January, so hurry up and get your ticket.

There will also be a lot going on under our energy security project – but to learn more on that you’ll need to wait. In the meantime, we wish you a happy holiday season and we look forward to another year of Friday Features.

 This week’s edition’s written by:

Chiara Carminucci, Digital Communications Officer - Eurelectric

Other articles you might be interested in: